


A Bifurcating Stream

by AmateurScribes



Series: Bad Things Happen (to Grif) Bingo [10]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Graphic Description of Corpses, M/M, Time Travel Fix-It, but not really, survivor's guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 02:09:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16358648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmateurScribes/pseuds/AmateurScribes
Summary: Grif is tired of death, and he's tired of fighting. There's nothing calming about entering a quiet base or a quiet island.And there's nothing happy about holding a dying soldiers hand.And there's nothing charming about waking up to death all over again.





	A Bifurcating Stream

**Author's Note:**

> Yeup, another bingo today. I got really inspired to do this one, especially since I had two conflicting prompts for it. Luckily for me, out dear director Joe established this nifty thing called time travel in the series... As always, all mistakes are mine! Hope you guys enjoy this one!

Something's wrong. He's been sneaking around, trying to catch the attention of the Blues and Reds for a while now, loudly humming to himself and acting like a fool to get caught by at least  _ one _ of them. And yet nothing's happened.

He's been going around and around in circles, making  _ sure _ that he was in the line of sight of any and all cameras that he came across. The base was silent, and he was all alone. 

He gets to the point where he stops pretending, he sits up from his crouch and just stands there. He strains his ears to catch up some sort of chatter or sound from anyone else. 

All he can hear is the soft whisper of the water kept at bay from the glass window in front of him, the muffled sounds of the sea creatures creating an ambiance that set him on edge.

And Grif stays there, stays still, a sitting duck, and no one comes.

There is something horribly, horribly wrong.

He reaches up to radio Locus, gazing at his reflection in the glass when Locus beats him to the punch calling him first. He connects to the frequency easily and waits as Locus states, "Agent Washington and Agent Carolina are no longer within the facility."

"Yeah, I don't think anyone else is either," he mutters. "No one has taken the bait, and I've been walking around in the open for a while."

Locus is silent as he thinks of their next step, eventually telling Grif, "Check the holding cells, I'm going to see if I can find out where they went."

"Got it," Grif ended the call at that, and turned away from the window, looking at the open passageways in front of him.

He wasn't sure where the jail cells were, but he was sure that he'd find them eventually. And now that he didn't have to worry about being bait or getting caught by anyone, he found himself willingly running, as much as he normally loathed to do it, so that he could search faster. 

Any time that he came upon a door, he'd open it, sometimes with force but most often without force. Almost all the rooms he came upon where empty, and each time he opened a door only to be faced with nothing he felt his heart speed up. 

His pace became frantic and he kept looking and looking because surely he must come upon the jail cells sooner or later. He reaches a closet of sorts and he opens it up-

Only to be met with two bodies propped up against the wall, their blue and white armor being tainted by the blood that protruded from the bullet holes in their cracked visors. Grif gags at the sight and he steps backward as his hands shoot up to cover his mouth, being stopped by his helmet.

He might not have liked Andrews- didn't like the way that she had dissected his character, how she made him feel vulnerable and exposed- but that didn't mean he'd ever wish her dead. Not her, not her cameraman. Not anyone.

He keeps moving back until he feels the wall stop him, his armor lightly clinking against it.

God if Temple and his ilk were capable of doing this then-  _ then- _

He turns away and races down the hallway, passing by doors, too scared to open them, frightened to death that he would open one and see everyone dead.

He keeps running until he reaches a dead end, a single door in front of him calling and luring him to open it. It's the biggest entryway that he's seen so far. 

He's found the holding cell. And he just stares at the panel that would cause the door to slid out of view, and he thinks that maybe he should just leave it be. The other's aren't dead if he doesn't see their bodies, he tells himself. It's the same logic he's been telling himself for years since the others first told him that Kai was dead. 

But he can't just turn around and walk away. Because they could be alive, they could be waiting behind the door in front of him, waiting for rescue and he would just turn around and leave them to die because he was afraid that they were already dead.

So he walks up to the panel and opens the door with as little hesitation as he could hold back. And the door slides past, slowly revealing to him an empty row of cells. No bodies, dead or alive. 

Grif should feel relieved, he should feel hope that they didn't meet the same fate that Andrews and her cameraman did. 

But he only feels panic at the vacuous space, wondering where they could be. Because the base is empty, and the only people alive were him and Locus. 

He turns around, and he feels his body move back towards Locus' ship, but his mind is still back there at the room with the dead bodies. 

The base is quiet and he is afraid.

Grif doesn't have to wait long before Locus is stalking towards him, his cloak falling away and revealing clenched fists and hunched over shoulders.

"Did you find anyone?" Locus asks as he approaches Grif.

Licking his lips, he averts his eyes as he mutters, "I didn't find the others, but... there was this reporter, Dylan Andrews, and her cameraman, and they were- I found their bodies... They were dead."

"I see," Locus says, and he turns away from Grif for a minute, breathing in deeply and his hands start to shake. "The room I entered in search of the Freelancers bore results. I went looking for Freelancers and I found some. All of them dead, corpses rotting in their suits. But I didn't find Agent Washington or Agent Carolina."

"Fuck," was all he could say in response. Closing his eyes to hide the eerie underwater tomb. 

Why did people have to die? It wasn't necessary. It didn't do anything but ruin people's lives and just add more grief into the world- as if there wasn't enough already. 

Grif was pretty sure that the cameraman was still in college. He hates that he can't remember his name.

"We have to move on," Locus interrupts his thoughts, walking towards his ship. "They could very well be on Earth already, and we must stop them. Before anyone else has to die."

"Right," he mumbles. He boards the ship after Locus does, and they're taking off towards Earth. Lopez is quite, and Grif can't stop himself from grabbing one of the volleyball's and hugging it.

It's a long journey to Earth. And Grif knows that Locus is going to push the boundaries of A'rynasea to reach the planet as soon as possible.

* * *

The small island that the Blues and Reds have set up base at has storm clouds circling it, the sky bloodied red and orange. Locus lands and he tells Grif to stay while he clears the perimeter.

So he waits in silence, and then Locus is back telling him that's it's all clear for him to leave the ship. He settles down the volleyball, sets it down next to the others, and leaves.

Walking out onto the island, he notes all the collapsed bodies on the ground- nearby and in the distance, a myriad of fallen Red and Blue SIM's, their visors tinted green. 

Grif knows he shouldn't, but he wonders if all these soldiers were dealt the same card in life like him. If they were trying to serve their country, but were kicked to the side and left to rot in the dark. Or if they were bad people if they enjoyed working for the Blues and Reds because they wanted to instead of feeling obliged to follow those who aimed to get retribution. 

Passing by a Blue soldier with a bullet hole in their chest he wonders.

Locus leads him to the entrance of the base with a bifurcating path, looking at him as he said, "I'll take one path and you the other. Radio me if you find anything, and I shall do the same."

Donning his cloak, Locus disappeared before his eyes, and Grif assumed that he was already hurrying down one path, leaving Grif the other. He hurried down the corridors, entering a room with a dead Maroon soldier. 

And for a second, his heart stops. But then he sees the Blue tint of the visor, and notes the stab wound, and knows that that wasn't Simmons. That it was someone else, an impostor. 

But the thought that he had been too late to save him haunts his thoughts, even as he hurries out of the room. Ignoring the flowing lava that lights up the room in a fury of death, and he thinks back to the blue that had softly cradled the tomb of the Desert Gulch. 

And he hurries, faster and faster until he reaches a balcony, and he looks down-

He looks down and he sees a massacre.

There was no mistaking the bodies of his friends. Blood pooled on the ground, and his eyes danced from armor to armor taking in the wounds the cracked chest plates and the shattered visors. And when his eyes land on Simmons- the real Simmons, not that dead doppelganger from before- he chokes back his sobs and collapses on his knees.

He can feel his desire to search for one of the volleyballs overcome his sense, that's his safety net, he needs it because he wants to look down at the aluminum visors and pretend everything is ok, pretend that he's back on Iris when everything was fine.

There was so much he wanted to tell them, he wanted to say he was sorry- he needed to apologize for his words, for his actions. He didn't mean it, he  _ didn't, _ and now he can't tell them because they're gone, and he just wanted to tell Simmons that he loved-

He stills when he hears haggard coughing, and he sees Caboose's form shudder from pain and he's overcome with a need to get down there  _ right now- _

Grif doesn't know where he got the rope from, but there's one in his hands, and he's sliding down it, tumbling down from the last drop, the end of the rope being too short, and he stumbles to his feet, almost tripping over himself to get to Caboose. 

The Blue soldier is turned on his side, and Grif reaches over to turn him only for a bright blue visor to peak up at him. His hand jerks back as if touching the SIM Trooper had physically burned him.

The unknown soldier whimpered in pain, fingers twitching slightly, and Grif feels so lied to, when a soft and weak voice breaks the silence, asking "Biff, is that you?"

He doesn't know what to say, he doesn't know who this is, but he feels the unfairness of the world come crashing down upon him in waves, because of all the people who were meant to survive, it would be someone on the enemy side.

"It worked, my- my machine? Temple must be happy," the soldier trailed off. "Biff- he's been so sad and angry since you left. Nothing made him happy, and I tried... I tried so hard..."

It sounded like the soldier was starting to cry, and he coughed again a wet and sickly sounding noise. If the soldier's helmet was off, Grif was sure that he'd see blood dribbling down his chin. 

"I... I know I tried to bring back Church," the soldier continues, much to Grif's shock at hearing  _ that _ name slip past his lips. "I thought it'd make Caboose happy... but so much happened... someone got shot..."

Looking down at the bullet hole in the soldier's chest plate, Grif had a pretty good idea on who got shot. 

The words of the dying soldier, caused him to glance around at everyone else, at the bodies strewn about, at all of his friends and their corpses. And he looks at the rumbling machine, bright with a chaotic blue and yellow light. 

"I don't want to die," the soldier admits quietly. "But Caboose is in heaven, and I want to see Caboose again."

"What's your name?" Grif asks because there's something about this soldier that makes him different from all the rest. And it's not the resemblance to Caboose that makes him ask, and it's not the honesty in his voice as he talks about the Blue.

It's the fact that Grif didn't know the name of Andrew's cameraman, and it's the fact that this is a human being dying in front of him. And Grif is oh so tired of death. 

"Biff, it's me, Loco," the soldier whines, as he shifts his hand closer to Grif's. "Please, please hold my hand."

Linking his fingers through the other's Grif just sits and watches the life fade away from Loco. The other man is babbling about what he plans to do when he sees Caboose again, proclaiming to Grif that Caboose was the nicest person he had ever met.

"Biff, Temple is dead," Loco says, a softness to his voice, indicating to Grif that it wasn't going to be much longer before he passed on too, like the others. "You didn't get to see him again..."

"Yeah," and Temple is all the better for it. Because if he was alive, Grif was sure that he would have slaughtered the man himself. One more death, so long as it was his.

"Maybe... maybe you still could," the Blue shifts his helmet towards the machine. "It's... a voice told me to build this machine, guided me into doing it. It's a time machine... use it, Biff. See Temple again."

The fingers start to go limp in his grasp, and he watches as Loco turns his head towards the ceiling asking, "Is heaven nice Biff?"

Grif doesn't have to answer.

The Blue soldier dies and Grif let's go of his hand.

And he goes up to everyone else, and he checks to see if they too had somehow survived as well. He checks and feels for pulses, but he finds all but one.

And it's Simmons pulse. Too weak for medical help to save him, but just enough for Grif.

So he leans over Simmons unconscious body, and he whispers, "I love you, you stupid nerd."

And Simmons doesn't wake up. And he doesn't stir.

But Grif gets up, and he walks over bodies on his way to the machine. There's a lot of things he doesn't understand when he looks at it, mechanics that are far beyond his understanding. But wondering towards a secluded area reveals to him a computer monitor, and that's something he can work with.

Everything is already displayed for him on the screen, a series of numbers that he instantly recognizes as a date- a random day, during a not so random year. 

That's a date from when they were still in Blood Gulch, from when everything was fine and normal. And he thinks back to what Loco said, about Church.

And so he backspaces and he enters a new date. He approximates, his calendar was never fixed on his HUD so he doesn't know if he got the day right, but he knows the year. And sometimes that's all you need.

Grif hits enter without any sort of hesitation. 

And he hears the whirring of the machine, the sounds of something forming, and he walks back to the open chamber filled with corpses. 

There's a portal in front of him, and he can peer in and see a frozen still of everyone just before they fought on the Staff of Charon. There's Church, also frozen in front of them, and he wonders on what the AI was doing moments before the battle. But he finds that he doesn't care. 

Grif takes a step and walks through.

He feels the universe bend and snaps as he does so, and he opens his eyes to see that he is not in front of the group of collected soldiers, but instead, he is in the same position that he was in so long ago. 

There are no doubles, no two versions of himself.

And then the door bursts open-

* * *

When he wakes up, he's in a hospital bed with wires connected to him, and an alive but worried and tired Carolina sitting next to his bed.

Her head is bowed and her hands cover her face, but at the sound of his shifting she looks up, revealing tear streaks.

"Grif?" she asks, her voice hoarse. "Oh my God, you're awake, you're  _ alive." _

"Huh," he slurs out, and he tries to lean forward, but his head feels like it's stuffed with cotton balls, and his arms feel like lead. 

"I can't believe you're alive," she whispers. 

"Wh- where's everyone else," he asks, feeling drowsy and worried all in one.

"They," she stops, turning away as her face crumbles slightly, trying to regain her composure. "I'm sorry- I'm so sorry."

No. 

No, no this was- 

This was supposed to be his second chance.

"They didn't make it off Hargrove's ship, we barely made it in time to save your life," Carolina revealed, not noticing how he was no longer aware and present of what was happening around him.

Why him?

Why was it always him who gets to live?

And suddenly he's living in three different times. He's living in the past, breathing in the smoke after the colony was destroyed leaving no one alive. He's living in this present, this new he created to fix everything but cut off everyone's lives earlier in the timeline. And he's living in the future, the old future, the one where he held a dying man's hand and listened to the waning pulse of the only person in the world he loved that was left. 

He- he has to try again.

But there were no Reds and Blues to impersonate, and how would that change Temple's plan.

Grif needed that time machine.

"They're not dead," he says, swallowing. "Don't- don't let the galaxy know that they're dead."

"What?" Carolina asks, confused. 

"I- we're on vacation, tell the world that," his eyelids flutter closed, but he forces them back open. "No- don't tell them anything, just don't tell them we're dead."

"Grif, I know- I know that this is a lot to take in," her voice is strained as her lips quiver. "But please, don't do this to yourself. Please, it's only going to hurt you in the long run."

"No, Caro- Carolina you don't understand," he tried harder to lean forward, tries to get out of the bed, but Carolina is up and out of her seat, gently pushing him back. "They're not dead, not in a different timeline, I just- I just need to try again."

"Timeline? Grif you're not making any sense," she pauses, and Grif is pretty sure that she just radioed in Grey or perhaps someone else. "Grey is on her way. Please just stay in the hospital bed, Grey warned me that you may have brain damage but she wanted to wait until you were awake to know for sure."

"No, no you don't understand," he tries shaking his head, but it only lulls to the side. "They're not dead, I can save them."

"Captain," Grey opens the door, her voice breathless as she hurries over to him. "I can't begin to tell you how relieved I am that you made it."

He can't get a word in edgewise after that, both women talking over his instances that the others weren't dead. 

And every day was like that, Carolina a constant presence by his side, a detriment but not on purpose, constantly stopping him from trying to set motion into play.

Kimball announces that the Reds and Blues, that all but one, have passed away to the UNSC. And Grif gives up. Because the future has changed now.

He wants to reach out to Andrews and the cameraman wants to make sure that they're both alive. But he's confined to the hospital bed, and he can't very well ask without Carolina getting immediately suspicious and protective.

In any other circumstance, he'd be touched at how she didn't want him to die either. 

But he needs to find a way to reach out to  _ someone _ who can set the timeline back onto the right track.

He needs that time machine, he needs to try again.

One day, Carolina comes in, and she's holding something with her, a similar device to the one that Andrews had brought to them on Iris in the old timeline. 

"I have something to show you," she mutters, settling down in her designated chair. "Epsilon didn't make it either, but he left a message for- for all of you. He would have wanted you to see it, even if it's only you."

He expects it to be the message that Temple had manufactured, different like how the timeline had been changed, but still a lure to get the Freelancers where he wanted them. 

But as the message starts, he realizes that this wasn't a message edited together from previous calls.

No, no. This was something entirely new.

"Hey, guys... if you're hearing this then it means you did it. You won," echoes around the silent hospital room.

And Grif listens, he listens to this message that his timeline, his Reds and Blues never got to hear.

This final message from Church that never went through.

And he wonders where it went, wonders where it disappeared too.

He feels guilty, all so guilty that he's alive to hear this, in this new timeline. 

"There's more," Carolina adds silently, fiddling with the device before placing it down against the bedside table. "He made specialized ones for each of you... I haven't- I haven't listened to the other's, and I'm not going to listen to yours either."

With that, she gets up and leaves the room, closing the door just as Epsilon starts to say, "Hey Grif, I know that you probably don't want to hear this, but I might as well just go ahead and say it. Stop being such a lazy bastard. Not really inspiring final words to someone, but I gotta get that out of the way first."

Grif leans back against the hospital bed, and he just looks up at the tiled ceiling, losing himself to the cadence of Epsilon's voice, "I know you're a clever asshole, and you'd do a whole lot of good if you started using that brain of yours for more than schemes on how to get out of work. I know we haven't interacted much, beyond that time when I took over your body- sorry about that, by the way- and I know, it was Alpha who you spent most of your time with, but I still think you're smarter than the others."

Alpha and Epsilon, Church. It all started with him, just like everything else. And Grif hates him, and he hates how he's the only one to hear this message, this special message that never went through.

"And you could probably do anything you set your mind to if you actually decided to give a damn for once. So yeah, stop being a lazy bastard, at least for me ok? Me calling you smart is about as high a compliment and AI can give to one of you meat bags," Epsilon pauses for just one moment. "Goodbye, Grif. It was nice knowing and remembering you."

And the recording stops.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a lot of fun to do. I enjoyed how I could mesh the two prompts together to form one coherent story, and both of them were just beautifully angsty that it was such a blast to do. Also, in case anyone was confused, the ending follows the rules of Jax's idea of time travel number two, the creation of a new separate universe based on the timeline change.
> 
> My Tumblrs are: @agent-murica (main and where I'm accepting prompts) and @amateurscribes (writing).


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